


Big Brother, Little Brother

by AngeNoir



Category: Kate Daniels - Ilona Andrews
Genre: Brothers, Comfort, Families of Choice, Gen, Healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 12:53:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2851436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek's hero-worship is becoming annoying, but Curran finds that Derek himself... isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Brother, Little Brother

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anticyclone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/gifts).



> hope you like it!

“He’s following you again, Lord.”

Curran still had to stifle the desire to deny the title, it was that new. As it was, he glanced at the young mongoose who was his current attendant and said mildly, “He’s not causing any harm. Let him follow.”

The mongoose chewed her lip and Curran viciously beat down the irritation that would have him scaring away yet another one of his new pack. “But Beast Lord – he could go loup and attack.”

“If he was going to go loup, he would have already,” Curran said with all the patience he could muster.

She quailed, head dropping low. “Yes, Beast Lord.”

Dammit all to hell.

“I’m going up to my room,” Curran growled, storming up the stairs. One of these days, he figured, he should put in something easier than stairs – but elevators were in short supply with the Shift, and on top of that, it was an expression of weakness to admit that he really hadn’t planned well when he’d built the Keep. If he’d known what a pain it was to walk up all the stairs, he’d have put his rooms somewhere else.

… Okay, not really, but he’d have made it more easily accessible somehow.

A soft sound made him pause. The young wolf they’d found had taken to following him around, but generally the security measures that kept Curran’s rooms safe had kept him at bay. He must have found a way around them.

Which was interesting.

“You can come out, Derek,” he said quietly.

There was nothing at all, and Curran was tired enough from negotiating the unification of the multiple packs that he was ready to just leave it. Derek would stalk him back to the rooms, but that was it. Derek currently saw him as a savior, and though the hero-worship stick was getting old, soon enough it should disappear and Derek should stop following Curran around.

He hoped, at least. He didn’t know how much longer he could be patient with the thin ghost haunting his doorways and hallways.

He turned towards the stairs again, which was when a shadow peeled away from the corner of his vision and Derek stood there. The kid at least looked less thin than when they’d found the fourteen year old sitting on the ground outside of the flaming house.

“You eating regularly?” he asked.

Derek bit his lip and looked down.

Well, what good was hero-worship if he didn’t use it? “You know you’re useless to me if you’re too weak to do anything at all, right?”

Derek’s head jerked up, eyes wide.

Curran felt too old, for all that he was twenty-six. “If you want to be something more than a shadow along the wall, you need to train. You need to eat. You need to learn and grow, and you can’t do any of that following me around the Keep. You want to make sure that what happened in that house never happens again?” He leaned down, putting his face in the teenager’s face, watching Derek’s wide eyes. “Then grow strong enough to keep it from ever happening.”

Derek’s eyes widened, and his tongue darted out to wet his lips. “What would I need to do?” he whispered – the first sound Curran heard him say since they extracted the bare bones, Derek’s name, and Derek’s desire to not be part of the wolf pack from Derek’s throat.

Curran placed a hand on Derek’s shoulder and squeezed warmly. “Join your pack. See how one works. And then talk to Jim. He’ll help take care of you.”

“I don’t want to be taken care of,” Derek said, and Curran heard the steel, the defiance and strength, beneath the words.

Tentatively, he curled Derek closer to his body, and after a few minutes Derek went, wrapping arms around Curran’s waist and hugging him tight. “For right now, Derek, when you’re growing, you need care. Let the pack heal you, let Jim teach you, until you outstrip them all.”

“Can I out – can I do that?” Derek whispered against Curran’s chest.

It was almost like having a younger brother, someone Curran could protect that wasn’t tied down to one pack, someone who he could focus on without slighting one pack or the other. Curran clutched him a little tighter before releasing him.

“I know you can,” Curran rumbled. “Now go and get some sleep. I’m sure you didn’t eat dinner, either, did you?”

A real smile – small, but real – curved the corners of Derek’s mouth, and he scampered away down the hallway. Curran watched him go and smiled.

He knew he shouldn’t have favorites, but Derek was… Derek was someone he could protect.


End file.
